Sydney Cleaning Company Treated Their Staff ‘As Slaves'

They have been fined $370,000

A judge has found that a Sydney cleaning company treated some of its workers like "slaves", ordering it to pay employees thousands of dollars in back pay.

Grouped Property Services, in Sydney's inner-west, has been hit with a $370,000 penality by the Federal Court and ordered to back-pay 49 workers $223,244, AAP reports.

The company's former owner-operator Rosario Pucci has been fined $74,300.

in her judgment made public today, Justice Anna Katzmann, said that "some (employees) were treated by Grouped Property Services as slaves" as part of a "calculated attempt to avoid paying minimum award rates and statutory entitlements" between 2011 and 2013.